


Picture of My Life

by a2zmom



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Episode Related, Flash Fic, Gen, Meme, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-10
Updated: 2007-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:03:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a2zmom/pseuds/a2zmom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by the week's Open On Sunday prompt of oil. Title from a long ago song title fic meme.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Picture of My Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ninerva](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ninerva).



> Inspired by the week's Open On Sunday prompt of oil. Title from a long ago song title fic meme.

She's strolling along a side street when she sees the painting. Los Angeles will never be what it once was, but in the six years since the apocalypse, small neighborhoods like this one have cropped up.

She asks about it, but the owners can't tell her anything about the artist or even how they came to own the work. That's true of a lot of things here in this city.

She's glad they aren't paying any attention to her. She doesn't feel like explaining why the painting is of her. Not when it's a question she can't begin to answer. She's standing in a park, the beach behind her. The artist has drawn her lit by the sun, making her look ethereal. The colors are vibrant – the gold of her hair, the cerulean of the sea, the sage of the trees. But it's her expression that draws her in – she looks amazed, shocked and worried all at once. And happy. Most of all, happy. Happier than she can ever recall being.

She's so young in the painting. There's still an innocence that she lost long ago. She looks for the artist's signature although she already knows what she'll find. The elaborate old fashioned A is in the corner, almost hidden amongst the carefully executed shrubbery.

There's been no word of Angel or any of his friends in the years since LA fell. Her chest tightens as she blinks back tears. She doesn't understand how he could have drawn this. It's his dream, she thinks. I look so happy because he was there with me. A wish that she used to make so long ago.

The shopkeeper steps over to her. "Would you be interested in purchasing this work?"

She doesn't answer immediately. Her life now consists of training girls in the hopes they don't meet an early, ugly death. In between she has shallow relationships with men she doesn't particularly care for. When a true big bad shows up, she leads the charge, but she always survives. She still has her friends and Dawn, but she's also isolated from them. In the end, she's the general and that's her private burden to bear.

She looks at the painting once more. She was so in love then. And she had hope – no, a belief that in the end things would work out for them. How could the world ask her to bear so tremendous a burden and not give her anything in return? So naive, she thinks. So naive.

"No, I don't want it." The painting will eventually fade and that's for the best.


End file.
